newsline24

Streeting says he resigned because Labour ‘in fight of our lives against nationalism’, and it’s currently losing

Streeting praises the people he worked with as health secretary, and before that as shadow health secretary.

Leaving the job was a wrench, he says. He did not do it lightly, he says.

I left the government because we are in the fight of our lives against nationalism, and it is a fight that we are currently losing.

Unless we change course, we risk handing the keys of No 10 to Reform.

And I do not want that on our consciences.

For the first time in our history, nationalists are in power in every corner of the United Kingdom, Scottish and Welsh.

Nationalism represents an existential threat to the future integrity of the United Kingdom, and Reform UK represent a threat to the values and ideals that have made this country great, values and ideals that are written into the DNA of the National Health Service.

Streeting say that the creation of the NHS was “an act of courage, as well as conviction that health care should be provided based on what each of us need, not what any of us can afford. He goes on:

It is our responsibility to defend that promise and the values it represents, not just for the NHS or even for the survival of this government, but to win the battles we thought were long since won – of progressives against reactionaries, of patriots versus nationalists, of hope over hate.

Key events

Jakub Krupa

Jakub Krupa writes the Guardian’s Europe live blog.

At a briefing earlier, the European Commission was asked about the US and UK decisions to relax strict sanctions on Russian crude oil as fuel prices rise.

The commission was pointedly asked if their decisions do not undermine the broader approach to put as much pressure on the Russian economy as possible.

The chief spokerperson, Paula Pinho, said:

We will not comment on what other countries are doing on sanctions regarding Russia.

We remain committed to our sanctions on imports of Russian oil and gas, and we need to reiterate the call for Russians not to be benefiting from the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. It’s too ironic.

Streeting’s resignation speech – snap verdict

In many respects that was a very good speech – inspiring, emotional, well crafted. Many politicians have delivered speeches about how the generational contract has been broken, but few of them have been able to round it off with a line as good as the (Kennedy-inspired) “so the question isn’t whether young people would fight for their country, but when their country is going to fight for them”. (See 3.13pm.) Wes Streeting’s payoff line was terrific too. (See 3.24pm.) On the final day of a party conference, this would have been ideal.

And that’s what gives the game away. This felt like a speech that had been repurposed. It is unlikely that Streeting was drafting it for the Labour conference, but it sounded like a speech orginally written to be delivered at the opening of a leadership campaign – like the one that Streeting notable did not launch when he resigned from the government last week.

I’m the first to agree that you should never let good copy go to waste, but what we ended up with was a speech purportedly linked to Streeting’s resignation from cabinet that in fact told us almost nothing about why Streeting decided to go.

He said that he thinks Labour has been losing the battle against Reform UK (see 2.36pm), that he thinks it has been “treading water” (see 3.19pm) and that it is missing the chance to do “big things” and to deliver “real change” (see 3.24pm).

Apart from those assertions, there was nothing in the speech that Keir Starmer would not fully support. Much of the speech was just a celebration of patriotism, and Starmer would have been happy to deliver these passages word for word.

In his resignation letter last week, Streeting gave a fuller account of his reasons for quitting cabinet. He criticised Starmer’s leadership failings, and suggested these played a big role in Labour doing so badly in the local elections. He accused Starmer of offering “drift” and declared that it would be dishonourable staying in cabinet having decided he no longer had confidence in the PM.

But the letter did not clarify whether Streeting believes the main problem with Starmer is a presentational one (his communication skills), or whether it is to do with his policy agenda. And if Streeting does believe it’s Starmer’s policies that are wrong, what else is he proposing?

If he does have answers to that, he certainly did not reveal them today.

Streeting ends resignation speech saying Labour must deliver ‘real change’

Streeting ended his speech quoting Deborah James, the “bowelbabe” bowel cancer campaigner.

Referring to his own experience of cancer, Streeting said:

Another member of the cancer club, the late great bowelbabe Dame Deborah James, famously said, ‘Take risks, love deeply, have no regrets, and always, always have rebellious hope.’

It is with that in mind, and with the belief that we can and must do better, with deep love for my party and my country, with no regrets and with rebellious hope, that I have left the government.

The Labour party was elected to deliver real change. We still can.

Streeting suggests Labour has been ‘treading water’, and says it must show Britain can still do ‘big things’

Streeting said Labour had no time to waste.

Never waste a minute. That’s been my mantra in government, and it’s why I don’t believe our party has time to waste in government treading water.

Because the thing about emergencies is that they make the impossible possible.

Look back at the crises we’ve confronted. We couldn’t vaccinate against the deadly virus until we could. We couldn’t nationalise the banking system until we could. We couldn’t reorient our entire manufacturing base towards building aircraft until we could. We couldn’t build hundreds of thousands of homes fit for heroes until we could.

In times of greatest peril our country has been capable of doing big things. We still can.

Britain used to punch above its weight in the world. We still can.

Each generation needs to provide a better future for the next. We still can.

Wes Streeting speaking in the Commons Photograph: UK Parliament TV

Streeting said spreading opportunity should be Labour’s mission.

This is the calling of the Labour party, brought into existence to champion the interests of the working man and woman, the many, not just the privileged few.

It gave this kid from a council estate in Stepney in east London the chance to realise my potential, to go to a great university and spend my career tackling the injustices that hold other kids from backgrounds like mine back. T

The greatest tragedy of Britain today is that the next generation, for the first time in our modern history, faces worse prospects than the last.

So the question isn’t whether young people would fight for their country, but when their country is going to fight for them.

Streeting said this was the generational challenge facing Labour.

Streeting says AI is particular threat to job prospects for young people

Streeting says job security is a particular threat for the young.

For generations, people believe there was a ladder of advancement, an entry level job, skills acquired over time, promotion, security, progress.

Now, many young people fear that artificial intelligence may remove the lower rungs of that ladder altogether.

They ask what skills will still matter? Will there still be roots into stable, middle-class lives for kids from working-class families like mine?

Streeting says young people have been let down by politicians

Streeting said the young have been betrayed by the political system.

And how did Britain repay [young people for their sacrifice during Covid]?

By short changing them on their education, layering on debt, making it harder to get on the housing ladder. Failing to protect them from the AI jobs apocalypse.

This generation is the first left totally exposed to the time sucking algorithms and perils of social media.

The education secretary and I have raised our concerns about the impact of this on their learning and their wellbeing.

I also wonder what it is doing to their sense of connection with community and country.

Streeting said the social contract no longer applied.

Patriotism isn’t a lecture the old deliver to the young. It’s a relationship.

For generations, Britain understood that relationship as a social contract. You work hard, you play by the rules, you contribute to society, and in return you can build a decent life, a secure job, home of your own, a family if you want one, and the hope and conviction that your children will do better than you did.

A generation ago the average home cost around four times average earnings.

In many parts of Britain today it is eight, 10, even 12 times earnings.

Private rents consume vast proportions of household income.

Millions of young people who work hard and do the right thing cannot see a path to home ownership or security.

Streeting says he believes young people would be willing to fight for their country

Streeting said he did not believe claims that young Britons would no longer be willing to fight for their country.

A nation draws its strength from the condition of its people.

A recent survey of 16 to 29 year olds suggested that around half of all young people in this country wouldn’t be prepared to fight for it.

I’m not so sure about that. I think they would be every bit as brave and self-sacrificing as their grandparents and great grandparents were. Or is their contemporaries holding back the Russians in Ukraine have been.

When the cause is just and the need is urgent, they will step up regardless of what they might have told opinion pollsters.

I know this because when this country was facing a dire threat from Covid, young people did step up. The generation least at risk gave up the most to help the rest of us keep safe.

Streeting said he welcomed the assurance from the government that sanctions against Russia are not being watered down.

The frontline in Ukraine is the frontline for our freedom and democracy, and we are meant to be the party of internationalism and solidarity. It is only too disappointing to see Reform counsellors taking down the Ukraine flag when the British people want to fly it in solidarity. It is truly, truly shameful.

Some Reform MP protested loudly about that.

Streeting said the Nato secretary general was right to warn about the dangers of “an unhealthy reliance on one ally” (meaning the US).

And he attacked the Tory record on defence, saying Labour did not need lectures from “the Conservative party who ran down our capability and now have the audacity to heckle from the sidelines like the arsonist complaining that the fire brigade hasn’t turned up fast enough”.

Streeting said the economy was on the right track before the Iran war started.

[Rachel Reeves, the chancellor] has been delivering the fastest growing economy in the G7, falling inflation and lower interest rates. Her hard work, undermined by the consequences of a war we did not choose. And I paid tribute to the prime minister for keeping us out of it.

Streeting said Britons have endured crisis after crisis. Some, like the Iran war, and Ukraine and Covid, were imposed on us. Others, like austerity, Brexit and Liz Truss, were self-imposed.

He went on:

When I gave my maiden speech 11 years ago, I argued that none of the problems facing our country would be solved by leaving the European Union.

Today, in the dangerous and volatile world we find ourselves in, dominated by an unpredictable superpower in the USA, a rising superpower in China, and a failed superpower in Russia, it is even more clear that we would have been better off leading Europe than leaving the European Union …

This is why I argue for a new special relationship

Streeting said Britain needs an inclusive patriotism, not “a brittle nationalism built on grievance”.

He went on:

British patriotism, decent, fair minded, internationalist, bound together in common endeavour with the conviction that our greatest strength has always been one another.

We need to mobilise that spirit as we face the gathering storm.

The war in Iran may be over for now, but this fragile peace does not resolve the crisis in the strait of Hormuz.

Even if it were resolved tomorrow, the long tail consequences for the global economy and the British people will be stark.

Streeting recalls the Good Friday agreement, and he says that is “a reminder that a bigger and better politics is possible when people have courage”.

That is why we must reject the politics that tries to divide us, whether it’s dividing the countries of the United Kingdom or the people who call Britain their home.

The nurse from Nigeria is not the enemy of the factory worker in Newcastle, the family, fleeing war is not responsible for the cost of living crisis.

Division is the oldest trick in politics and Britain deserves better than that because the future of this country will not be built by setting neighbour against neighbour, it will be built by renewing the bonds between us.

Streeting criticises nationalism of SNP and Plaid Cymru, as well as English nationalism of Reform UK

Streeting say he knows that the SNP and Plaid Cymru do not see themselves as similar to English nationalists like Reform UK.

He goes on:

But nationalism is not progressive, and nationalism and patriotism are not the same things.

Nationalism says look inward, protect your own, turn away from the others.

Patriotism says this country is strongest when we are confident enough to be outward looking, generous and united.

Yes, united, but not always the same.

On these benches we believe in a stronger Scotland and a stronger Wales as part of a fairer United Kingdom.

Streeting says for too long patriotism has been ‘left to loudest voices and narrowest arguments’

Streeting says Labour’s fight, and the fight of Andy Burnham in Makerfield, is a “fight for the soul of our country”.

For too long and for too often, patriotism in Britain has been left to the loudest voices and the narrowest arguments, as though love of country belongs to one tribe, one party or one point of view.

But the Britain I believe in is bigger than that, because patriotism is not about who you exclude, it is about who you stand beside.

It is not rooted in fear of change or suspicion of difference. It is rooted in solidarity, in the belief that we rise or fall together.

That is the best of our country’s story. A Britain where people from different backgrounds, different faiths, different nations and regions still see themselves in one another.

A country where the son of Indian pharmacists can become our first Hindu prime minister without having his Englishness questioned.

A patriotism built not on blood and soil, but on shared values, shared institutions and shared responsibilities.

Streeting says he resigned because Labour ‘in fight of our lives against nationalism’, and it’s currently losing

Streeting praises the people he worked with as health secretary, and before that as shadow health secretary.

Leaving the job was a wrench, he says. He did not do it lightly, he says.

I left the government because we are in the fight of our lives against nationalism, and it is a fight that we are currently losing.

Unless we change course, we risk handing the keys of No 10 to Reform.

And I do not want that on our consciences.

For the first time in our history, nationalists are in power in every corner of the United Kingdom, Scottish and Welsh.

Nationalism represents an existential threat to the future integrity of the United Kingdom, and Reform UK represent a threat to the values and ideals that have made this country great, values and ideals that are written into the DNA of the National Health Service.

It is our responsibility to defend that promise and the values it represents, not just for the NHS or even for the survival of this government, but to win the battles we thought were long since won – of progressives against reactionaries, of patriots versus nationalists, of hope over hate.

Wes Streeting starts resignation speech saying he has left NHS ‘on road to recovery’

Wes Streeting, the former health secretary, is giving his post-resignation “personal statement” now.

He says the test for any politician is, did you leave things in a better state.

And he highlights his achievement at health.

The test of any of us in politics is, did we leave things in a better place than we found them?

Thanks for the choices made by this Labour government, the NHS is on the road to recovery.

Waiting lists fell by 110,000 in March, the single biggest fall in a single month outside of the pandemic for 17 years.

Ambulance response times for heart attack and strokes are now the fastest in five years.

Patient satisfaction with access to general practice has gone from 60% to 75%.

And at a time when public trust in politicians is low, we hit our target of recruiting 8500 more mental health workers three years early.